Welsh named Texas A&M AgriLife Research Faculty Fellow

COLLEGE STATION – Dr. Tom Welsh, an endocrine physiologist, has been named a Texas A&M AgriLife Research Faculty Fellow.

Welsh is section leader for physiology of reproduction in the department of animal science at Texas A&M University in College Station. His major research focus is investigating how stress adversely affects metabolism, immunity and growth in animals.

Welsh received the award at the Texas A&M AgriLife Conference Jan. 8. AgriLife Research established the Faculty Fellows honor in 1998 to recognize outstanding and productive faculty who have contributed to the scholarly creation and dissemination of new knowledge through exceptional leadership and grantsmanship.

According to the nomination, Welsh has advanced the premise that stress-responsiveness and temperament could adversely affect reproduction, metabolism, health and performance of animals.

“Specifically, he provided critical intellectual and physical capacity to the design, execution and interpretation of continuing projects that identify how endocrine and immune mediators of stress compromise short and long-term health and productivity of animals,” Cross said.

“As evident by awards and journal citations, Dr. Welsh is called upon to lead symposia, prepare white papers and serve as an external evaluator regarding disparate topics such as reproductive, growth and stress biology,” Cross said.

Welsh has had adjunct appoints to the department of veterinary integrative biosciences, 1989 to present, Texas A&M; department of chemistry and cell biology, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, 1998-2001; department of animal and wildlife sciences, Texas A&M-Kingsville, 2005-present; department of animal sciences, Texas Tech, 2008-2010. Welsh also serves as the external evaluator at Texas A&M-Kingsville and Eastern New Mexico University via a U.S. Department of Agriculture training grant to Hispanic serving institutions.

“Dr. Welsh sustains his individual excellent endocrine physiology research and education program while enhancing the productivity and intellectual development of the teams with which he helped establish,” according to the nomination. “His election to leadership roles reflects the degree of respect that he is accorded by local colleagues as well as by colleagues in professional scientific societies. Dr. Welsh’s scholarly and service oriented approach to science continues to bring positive distinction to Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Texas A&M University.”